The difficulties of an imperial policy in this respect do not differ much in character from the difficulties encountered in Paris. The British Empire, too, has its problems of 'Balkanisation,' problems that have arisen also from the anti-social element of 'absolute' nationalism. The present Nationalist fermentation within the Empire reveals very practical limits to the use of political power. We cannot compel the purchase of British goods by Egyptian, Indian, or Irish Nationalists. Moreover, an Indian or Egyptian boycott or Irish agitation, may well deprive political domination of any possibility of economic advantage. The readiness with which British opinion has accepted very large steps towards the independence and evacuation of Egypt after having fiercely resisted such a policy for a generation, would seem to suggest that some part of the truth in this matter is receiving general recognition. It is hardly less noteworthy that popular newspapers--that one could not have imagined taking such a view at the time, say, of the Boer war--now strenuously oppose further commitments in Mesopotamia and Persia--and do so on financial grounds. And even where the relations of the Imperial Government with States like Canada or Australia are of the most cordial kind, the impotence of political power for exacting economic advantage has become an axiom of imperial statecraft. The day that the Government in London proposed to set in motion its army or navy for the purpose of compelling Canada or Australia to cease the manufacture of cotton or steel in order to give England a market, would be the day, as we are all aware, of another Declaration of Independence. Any preference would be the result of consent, agreement, debate, contract: not of coercion. But the most striking demonstration yet afforded in history of the limits placed by modern industrial conditions upon the economic effectiveness of political power is afforded by the story of the attempt to secure reparations, indemnity, and even coal from Germany, and the attempt of the victors, like France, to repair the disastrous financial situation which has followed war by the military seizure of the wealth of a beaten enemy. That story is instructive both by reason of the light which it throws upon the facts as to the economic value of military power, and upon the attitude of public and statesmen towards these facts.